Jane Mayer: Italy Takes On the C.I.A.

Earlier today, Italy convicted in absentia twenty-three Americans for their roles in a C.I.A. extraordinary rendition gone awry. The Italian court sentenced the former C.I.A. station chief in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady, to an eight-year prison term. Lady has avoided setting foot in Italy, and officials there don’t know his current location.

The case makes clear that, while the Obama Administration may not want to “look back” at Bush-era intelligence scandals, the rest of the world may not be so ready to move on. As I wrote in my Profile of Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. still faces numerous legal perils for its Bush-era interrogation program, several of which have been posed by foreign investigations. The convictions in Milan would not have happened without the dogged pursuit of Armando Spataro, the local prosecutor. Spataro, who is a former prosecutor of Mafia bosses, a jazz buff, and a long-distance runner, is also great fan of America, and once told me that his favorite American city is Chicago.

Meanwhile, in New York, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals refused to grant Maher Arar, a mistaken victim of another extraordinary rendition, the right to sue for damages in any U.S. court. In a 7-4 en banc decision, the U.S. court found that Arar, a Canadian software engineer, had no right to sue U.S. officials, and that any open hearing on his mistreatment would reveal too many national security secrets.

The C.I.A., according to wire stories, had no comment on the Italian court’s ruling.